The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism
Adrian Daub and Charles Kronengold
Abstract
Starting with the 1963 film From Russia With Love, every James Bond film has followed the same ritual. After an exciting action sequence, the screen goes black and we spend three minutes with abstract opening credits and a song—a song that sounds like the music of our day in some respects, while sounding out-of-step in others. This book presents the story of this unique genre, and the audience it created for itself. Films, pop songs, society and geopolitics have changed a lot over the past half-century. By mostly refusing to change with them, the Bond-songs reveal the extent of these cultural ... More
Starting with the 1963 film From Russia With Love, every James Bond film has followed the same ritual. After an exciting action sequence, the screen goes black and we spend three minutes with abstract opening credits and a song—a song that sounds like the music of our day in some respects, while sounding out-of-step in others. This book presents the story of this unique genre, and the audience it created for itself. Films, pop songs, society and geopolitics have changed a lot over the past half-century. By mostly refusing to change with them, the Bond-songs reveal the extent of these cultural and aesthetic transformations.
Keywords:
James Bond,
pop music,
pop songs,
music in films,
late capitalism
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190234522 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190234522.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Adrian Daub, author
Associate Professor of German Studies, Stanford University, San Francisco, CA
Charles Kronengold, author
Assistant Professor of Musicology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
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